


Lonely Nights Breathe Deep Little Soldier

by Alexdoesthings



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Related, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 05:08:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/694504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexdoesthings/pseuds/Alexdoesthings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles wasn't  exactly sure how or when it started that he and Derek began seeing so much of each other. It was such an easy transition into that he simply woke up one day and found that he preferred to go into the woods and find the alpha than call his best friend.</p><p>The story of an understanding that grew into something more permanent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lonely Nights Breathe Deep Little Soldier

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking the other day about how I thought Sterek would actually happen. I love all the fanfictions where they just act on their connection and that love and passion for each other has always been there, but I just don't think that's how it would happen. They are both slightly broken individuals and they would be wary of each other. It would take time for them to build up that trust that lets the other over their wall. So I decided to try and see what would happen if I rolled with this idea.
> 
> I'm thinking this takes place after season two in that few months of cool down from the Kanima incident.

The Jeep gave a final whining hiss and died. Simply fell silent and stranded its owner right there on the side of the road in the middle of some god forsaken dirt road in the middle of the Beacon Hills Preserve. Stiles breathed out a hard aggravated breath and threw his head back into the headrest. He closed his eyes trying to calm himself but he was angry, at his car, the pounding starting in his head, and the world in general right down to the innocent, little woodland animals scurrying among the leaves.

He pulled his keys out of the ignition and paused for a few seconds muttering a plea to whatever vengeful spirit had it out for him. He put the key in, turned it, willing it with all his might to work, but the engine was silent. Stiles breathed out a heavy breath and rested his aching head on the steering wheel while his brain drummed itself against his skull. He reached resignedly into his pocket for his phone. He didn’t really want to call his dad to come get him but Scott had no car right now and what else was he supposed to do? It was a good plan, but when Stiles looked down at his phone he found a little crossed out circle where his bars should be.

“Great,” he muttered, shoving his now useless phone back into his pocket. Stranded in the middle of the woods with no car or cell service and at least three miles from the nearest hint of civilization, this was par for the course as far as Stiles was concerned.

He shoved his way out of the car more violently than he usually would and slammed the door. He was breathing hard, trying to keep his anger contained, leaning his forearms against the car. But this was the middle of the woods and there was no one here to see him; the squirrels weren’t telling anyone after all. So Stiles yelled, screamed, letting loose an angry, incoherent noise of anger, pain and frustration into the cloudy grey sky.

He raised his fist, only just resisting slamming it with all his strength into the jeep’s door, at the last second he slowing the momentum and just taping it against the plastic. He quieted and rested his forehead against the cool door. It felt nice on his throbbing head, which seemed to be getting more insistent. He rocked his forehead back and forth so skin rubbed plastic in a slow, miserable motion.

He let the pain in his head throb dully and stood there for what he intended to be a good long while, but it was cut short by a crunch of tires behind the jeep. Stiles glanced over his arm to see one very distinct black Camaro roll up behind his beloved blue jeep and stop. Stiles groaned and turned his head back to his car, lightly slamming his forehead against it. He didn’t need Derek Hale, alpha extraodinaire, to find him like this.

He heard Derek get out of the car and close the door behind him. Stiles shut his eyes, bracing himself. Derek walked up to the back of the jeep, his hands shoved calmly in the pockets of his leather jacket. He stopped, watching Stiles a few seconds before asking calmly, “You okay?”

Stiles raised his head off the jeep so he could look at Derek but his eyes settled on the corner of the jeep next to him instead of the werewolf. Stiles nodded bitterly a few times, out of habit, used to assuring people he was fine when he was not. Maybe it was the pounding in his head or the fact he had no one to talk to about all of it, but finally all the problems in his head got the better of him. He sighed angrily and asked, with a bitterly sardonic little chuckle, “What do you think?”

He looked down at his hands and clenched them, forearms still taking most of his weight as he leaned against the door. The words simply started pouring out of him as he traced his fingers with his eyes, “My car broke down in the middle of nowhere, the girl of my dreams is in love with Stegron, my dad doesn’t trust me, and my best friend ditched me for the newest model. So yeah, I’m just _fine_ ,” He finished on a near scream and shoved himself away from his car, radiating anger that had nowhere to go.

Stiles put his hands on the back of his head agitatedly and paced slowly away from his car, violence coiled like a spring in every step. He felt lost, spinning in a dark abyss at the bottom of the world with no one looking for him, no one even noticing he was missing.

He wasn’t sure why he said all that to Derek, of all people, and he was starting to regret his outburst when Derek broke his silence with an unexpected, “I think you mean Lizard.”

“What,” Stiles asked, turning back to Derek, sure he'd heard wrong.

“The Spiderman villain,” Derek clarified with a shrug of his shoulders, as though this was obvious, “Jackson looked more like him.”

Stiles was distracted from his troubles for a moment. Derek Hale understood a comic book reference, the aliens must have landed. A slow smirk revealed his teeth as it crawled involuntarily across Stiles’ lips and he breathed out a disbelieving laugh, his hands slowly falling from the back of his head.

“How do you know that,” Stiles asked, still in amazed disbelief, turning entirely back to face Derek and taking a few steps back toward his jeep.

“My,” Derek started to say but then his eyes clouded over and he looked down, voice holding a bitter note, “I used to know someone who loved those comics.”

Stiles’ expression slowly sobered as he realized who Derek must have been talking about and the image of those comic books going up in smoke invaded his mind’s eyes. He watched Derek for a long moment before the alpha raised his eyes back to Stiles’. They shared a look and an understanding passed between them, each silently acknowledging the pain and loss of the other.

Perhaps that’s where it started, the simple exchange of silent recognition between two people who had been left behind. Even though Derek’s loss towered higher than Stiles could imagine, it was still something they shared and understood about each other. That loss and the understanding that it did not need to be spoken, that they did not need each other’s pity, only each other’s acceptance, started to weave that chain between them that had been nothing more than loose threads before.

Derek jerked his head toward his car in invitation, "I'll give you a ride."

Stiles normally would have considered lying to him or refusing to ride in the great Hale mobile on principle. Their gaze was still holding though and Stiles simply nodded and said, "Thanks."

It was inexplicable and indefinable, but somehow the two lost souls found each other. They didn't yet know the comfort of the other, the happiness that they could tentatively bring each other, the hand that would reach out in the dark to guide them home, but it was enough, for the moment, to be understood.

They started to connect.


End file.
